We know the fairy tales are all ass backwards. No handsome prince is going to save us. We have to save ourselves, and tow him along and nurse and coddle him and do his laundry.

We know to take anything a man says with a grain of salt. If he says he loves you, he just wants in your panties. If he hates your guts he won’t tell you, and will insist nothing is wrong and stay with you anyway until something better comes along.

We know how to do 3000 things at once. I am sure some woman out there somewhere is nursing, doing dishes, talking on her cell phone and writing her dissertation.

A real woman holds her poise with the grace of a swan, even when the world is treating her like a duck.

Not a whole lot, really, besides age. I still watch disney movies like a 5 year old. You can be 50 years old and completely immature. If I had to absolutely pick something, it’d have to be ability to cope with stuff. That’s my maturity guage, I guess.

Whining!!!! Immature girls whine.“OMG, I have to work two hours and write a paper tonight, woe is me.” While the woman has already worked 8 hours that day, will write that same paper, plus be working a little while on her business start up all that night. But she doesn’t mention it to anyone. Another thing that makes someone a woman, is she is secure enough and proud of herself, she doesn’t need other people to know how hard it may be to get where she wants to go.

Well, I know I can recognise the difference, however I’m not quite sure what that difference constitutes. It seems to happen sometime in the mid 20’s, it’s probably just a cumulative effect of the years giving a more lived-in appearance….. Sorry if I’ve made women sound like a house.

Girls are all giggly & silly, playing with their mobile phones every two minutes, all they seem to say is OMG, OMG, OMG, REALLY, REALLY, SHUT’UP, NOooooo WAY!!!!
A woman on the other hand carries herself well can actually hold a conversation without hiding behind her hand, dresses well & generally just more composed, they both still play games though, I guess none of us ever really grows up! :-/

I was thinking a woman looks at the world, and the men in that world, and knows what she wants, until I read escapedone7’s answer. Now I’m thinking maybe they just want their partner in life to be a true mature man or a woman. I like my inner child, but I know when he has to step aside and let the mature me stand up.

As both a guy who has both total recall with regard to my teen dating years and as a father of five girls – I’ll tell you that you have no clue as what constitutes maturity in a woman. (It ain’t fifteen years – boobs or no boobs.)

Sure! It doesn’t apply across the board, of course. But for the majority of us, we had to spend a lot of time catering to our parents, which was forced upon us in the form of many guises (mostly in the form of the guilt-inducing “You owe me because I have given so much to you” emotional blackmail comments).

Most of us spent our childhoods cajoling our parents, fetching things, being the TV channel changer or rabbit ear antenna, or emotionally supporting them in countless ways every day of our lives. The “children are people, too” movement is our post-Spock retort to those days. That movement wasn’t born out of a sudden cosmic epiphany. It was born out of being fed up and tired of playing the parent.

We wanted more for our children than what we had. Think of this child-friendly movement as millions adults who finally realized they had the power to say, “I am SO done with your emotional blackmail! No more for me, thanks!” and sent to the children-are-to-be-seen-and-not-heard crowd.

Some people never grown up. Some people grow up too soon. A woman is when a woman feels she is no longer a girl – a trauma, a responsibility, a true love…all of these can open one’s eyes. I believe comfort within one’s body and with one’s mind and a certain clarity about the world and your goals is what makes one an adult, separate from their younger counterparts.

Yeah and if I composed such a comprehensive, sweeping championing of male-ness, including such snide, generalising critique of women‘s desires and behaviours, I’d be beaten to death with handbags bef—chauvinist!—ore anyone could say… oh.

May I add another facet to the conversation that might clarify the topic? When a girl becomes a woman is not solely based on physical development. Age certainly comes into play.

What several people are referring to on this thread is the difference between a woman and a lady. A female can be a woman at the age of 50, but not be considered a lady like someone at 30, 20 or even 15 could be.